Yameen trying every trick in the book to stay in power despite election defeat

The Maldivian President Abdulla Yameen, who was convincingly defeated by the Joint Opposition candidate, Ibrahim Mohamed Solih in the Sept 23 presidential election, is trying every trick in the book to stick to power by nullifying the result.

Yameen has time until Oct 12 to lodge complaints against the result. And will be in power till Nov 17 when his term officially ends to do all the follow up work.

He has already made serious charges of rigging against the Elections Commission and its chief, Ahmed Shareef.

His Progressive Party of the Maldives (PPM) has said that it does not rule out challenging the result in the Supreme Court.

And the current Supreme Court of handpicked judges is said to be his handmaiden.

If his current complaints are accepted by the complaints panel and if the Supreme Court rules in his favour, Yameen could sack the present elections commissioners and appoint another set of handpicked commissioners to conduct the next elections.

He has replaced the police chief subsequent to his defeat, fearing that the incumbent could begin to act in favour of the President-elect, Ibrahim Solih.

Although Yameen accepted the election result gracefully,  publicly stated that he was bowing to the peoples’ will and declared that he would quit office at the end of his term on Nov 17, it did not take long for him to make an about turn.

It is suspect by some that either his wife or Justice Minister Azima Shakoor had influenced him into thinking that he could not have lost if the election was not manipulated in the joint opposition’s favour by the “trusted” Chairman of the Elections Commission Ahmed Shareef.

However, the opposition Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) spokesman Hamid Abdul Ghafoor believes that the decision to turn turtle would have been Yameen’s and Yameen’s only.

Yameen is a hard nut, a megalomaniac, said Ghafoor who had known him since his school days as a classmate and subsequently as a government servant in the Education Department.

OPPOSITION’S VIEW OF SHAREEF

The opposition had for long been alleging that the Elections Commission chief Shareef was devising ingenious means to rig the election in Yameen’s favour, and had even publicised these means.

Shareef made this possible by openly declaring his commitment to Yameen. It was alleged that he had been handsomely paid for the assigned job.

According to Maldives Independent Shareef was hand-picked by the President and endorsed by the ruling PPM at a parliament sitting boycotted by the opposition. Shareef had also been secretary general of Yameen’s PPM and was therefore a highly trusted follower.

Upon his nomination, the spokesman of the main opposition MDP, Imthiyaz Fahmy, had said: “We have no trust in his independence.”

Maldives Independent said: “Shareef’s Twitter page was enough to question his neutrality. As the head of the state utility Fenaka Corporation, Shareef championed Yameen and worked in his re-election campaign, calling the President a hero while taunting the opposition.”

“The opposition knows they don’t have a slightest chance of winning an independent election against HEP Yameen because of his transformational economic agenda. The only way to achieve their selfish goals coming to power is to attempt a coup, using money they owe to the people,” Shareef had tweeted a month before his appointment to the independent electoral body.

“Ahead of last year’s municipal elections, Shareef was caught on video promising jobs for opposition candidates if they withdrew their candidacies. Citing his partisan background, the opposition alleged collusion and suspected Shareef would fix the election,” Maldives Independence reported.

MDP’S RESPONSE TO PPM’S PLAN

Expecting the poll to be rigged by the Election Commission (EC), the Joint Opposition worked doubly hard to win the poll in such a way that rigging would not be easy.

“We went on door to door canvassing and using all social networks to reach the grassroots. While Yameen was sitting pretty confident that that the system was geared to his needs and that his economic achievements will win him a clear majority, we were crunching numbers.”

“While we estimated that 70% of the electorate was anti-Yameen the actual voting revealed that it was a little over 58% But it was clear that the lead was too much to rig the result,” Ghafoor said.

“Shareef could not carry out the job given to him by Yameen. People had come in their thousands to vote. If they were registered in far flung areas with a design to discourage them from voting, they went to those places to exercise their franchise. Polling time had to be extended to allow the assembled to vote,” Ghafoor pointed out.

A disappointed Yameen turned his guns against Shareef.

“He was made the fall guy. Yameen suspected him of taking money from the Joint Opposition to rig the election in the latter’s favour. Shareef is now between a rock and a hard place. Neither Yameen nor Solih trusts him. Yameen is threatening to arrest him. Shareef and his commissioners are saying that their families are being threatened by ruling party goons,” Ghafoor said.

According to the media, barring Shareef, other commissioners have left the Maldives. The UN Representative in the Maldives has met Shareef and heard his woes. The US has appealed to Yameen and the Joint Opposition to sit together and sort out issues to bring about a smooth transfer of power.

CHINA BEHIND YAMEEN?

Shareef and the Joint Opposition rule out a Chinese hand in Yameen’s decision to challenge the election.

“China does not interfere in the internal affairs of the Maldives,” Shareef asserted.

“Yameen did what he did because he blindly believed that he would beat the opposition going only by the assurances of the Yes Men around him. He did no field work to test this claim,” said Ahmed Akram, one of the five elections commissioners.

Even the opposition does not believe that a foreign hand is involved or that Yameen had been advised wrongly by somebody.

“Yameen is his own man and he is the type who will take such drastic decisions,” said Hamid Ghafoor of the MDP.

MESSY SITUATION

Ghafoor concedes that the situation in the Maldives is “messy” and the transition from Yameen to Solih is not going to be easy.

He believes that Yameen will do his utmost to stay in power. He has already changed the chief of the police, and is planning to replace the Elections Commission.

The ruling party has said that it was not ruling out approaching the Supreme Court to annul the election.

“The current Supreme Court judges had been handpicked by him and he is counting on them to give a judgment favourable to him,” Ghafoor said.

Ghafoor believes that peoples’ power will ultimately prevail as it did earlier when the all-powerful Maumoon Abdul Gayoom was ousted after a 30 year dictatorship.